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New participation opportunities published online from March 31, 2025
The science city of Griesheim has comprehensively revised its guidelines for effective citizen participation. The new version was unanimously adopted by the city council on February 6, 2025, and will be published online on March 31 on the city's participation platform www.griesheim-gestalten.de and on the city's website. Printed copies are available from the Citizen Participation Coordination Office .
Innovations simplify participation
The guideline, originally adopted in 2019, underwent a fundamental revision following a multi-year evaluation process. The development team consisted of 12 residents of Griesheim as well as representatives from politics and administration. The process was supported by the Darmstadt-based participation agency "wer denkt was GmbH".
A key change concerns the process for initiating participation: Instead of a petition, a single person's wish is now sufficient to initiate an online survey on the respective project outline. The deadline for this has been extended from three to six months, and the minimum number of supporters reduced to 50. This makes it significantly easier for citizens to encourage participation in a specific project.
Goal: Greater integration of all perspectives
Anouk Kaltenbach from the Citizen Participation Coordination Office explains: “The revised guidelines are intended to facilitate participation in our city. Many Griesheim residents want to get involved. We have experienced this time and again in recent years. Griesheim is diverse and thus offers many different perspectives that we all want to learn about.”
Background: The Griesheim guidelines for citizen participation
The guideline defines binding framework conditions for participation in Griesheim. It stipulates when and on which topics citizens should be involved and is based on fundamental quality standards to which the administration and political bodies have committed themselves.
The city council had already decided to create such guidelines in 2016. The first version was adopted in 2019 after an intensive participatory process. With this updated version, the city is responding to the experiences of recent years and sending a clear signal in favor of greater participation, transparency, and dialogue.
Further information and contact details for the coordination office: gestalten@griesheim.de
